You can do yourself a good turn, help one of the most positive organisations in the country - Crann - and perhaps at a later date take part in some of their activities. Then, too, you can solve a Christmas present need. You just buy their 1998 calendar entitled "Hedgerows and Tall Shrubs" by Noel Kiernan and Cathy Fitzgerald. The cover has four charming illustrations in colour by the well-known C. F. Tunnicliffe. There is a flat statement in one of the publicity notes which may bring you up short. It is: "Most of our remaining broadleaf tree cover is found in the hedgerows - a habitat under increasing threat." Well. And in the introduction to the calendar we read: "Hedgerows form a vital link as the last evidence of our woodland past. Hedgerows are in fact linear woods, `living fences' that contain remnants of our native flora." In parts of Co Meath, for example, ash grow in so many hedges, and here and there you can see that the farmer has carefully spaced out the ash plants coming up, so that they make significant trees. One side road is a model of this care for the look of the land. Nearby is a short run of oaks in the border of the road.
Cathy Fitzgerald, in this introduction, writes that while most of us are familiar with the more common native woodland trees and shrubs that appear in hedgerows, such as ash, rowan, beech and sycamore, they in Crann have presented in this calendar trees and shrubs that are not so well known and may be becoming rare in hedgerow habitats. So, apart from oak, they give us, in words and picture, such shrubs as guelder rose (not actually a rose at all, they say) bird cherry, bay willow, wych elm, spindle, aspen, crab apple (dying out in most parts of the country known to this corner) and others. They tell you, too, about propagation from seed or layering or whatever.
Full of information in a most agreeable presentation. And you can get this calendar by phoning either Crann, Leitrim, phone/fax 07831913 of Crann/Oak Glen at Crank House, Banagher. The latter number is 0509 51718. And £5 including postage is the very reasonable price. Buy it, read it, admire it and learn, month by month, as you turn the pages on the wall where it hangs. Y